Five months ago, I have written what Blizzard revealed and have planned for the next StarCraft expansion in the campaign. Just last week, they unveiled more details and we were greeted by new potential and improved units for the multiplayer. I also wanted to remind everyone what Dustin said about Terran, and I quote -
“We just have too many good units in that race.”
And we were introduced 3 new potential Terran units regardless, damn it Dustin.
For those who don't know what happened, let me sum it up for you. The highlight of SC in Blizzcon was each race are getting 2-3 new...

So recently I watched StarCraft 2 lead designer Dustin Browder’s talk in GDC about SC2, while he did cleared up a lot of things about the game balance and stuff, until the “Solo Tech” section (you can click on the side bar on the left in that page),which I find a bit contradicting.
“This guy wasn’t ready for e-sports.” said Dustin when he was talking about a Terran unit, the Diamondback from Wings of Liberty campaign. He then continued with other campaign units such as the Specter, Goliath, Wraith, Hercules and the Predator (transformer inspired cyber cat), and he does have his valid...

The Past
Before there was SC2, it was Brood War of SC1. The BW e-Sports phenomenon only existed in the Land of South Korea, where progamers who made it big are treated like Hollywood superstars, those geeks have their own fan clubs, fan girls screamed with orgasm everytime their favourite player does something spectacular, they have mascots and thousands of fans turn up for a final, with cheerleaders and team flags.
I kidd you not.
While they have been doing this for a decade, we foreign gamers kind of envied them for having such culture that non-gamers can...

It has been more than a week since StarCraft 2 Heart of the Swarm expansion was previewed around the world, although we didn’t get to see any new units for multiplayer but we have the privilege to check out what’s in the campaign for us. By now there are probably a berzillion articles of the campaign gameplay, but there no one wrote their thoughts of the campign lore yet. Entering food for thought.
Man that’s a lot of banelings…And the logo colour is purple!
HotS picks up after where Wings of Liberty (WoL) ended, from the teaser trailer we can see that Kerrigan...

Hello readers and sc fans, this is another write up of the recent announced up-coming patch 1.3.3! Although it’s only a Public Test Realm (PTR) just like before, most of the changes are likely to be implemented. But we don’t know that, so it’s time for some analysis!
Balance
PROTOSS
Archons are now a massive unit.
Range increased from 2 to 3 (new).
Pros – When I watched mouz.HasuObs vs SlayerS_BoxeR in the recent TSL, it hit me when I saw Archons being picked on by Marauders like little weak pussies puppies. But with this change Archons no longer...

All good things must come to an end and so did the TSL3’s Ro16, but not before the intense games that day 4 brought along. It was the MLG Dallas winning Swedish Zerg Dignitas.NaNiwa vs. German Terran ESC.GoOdy. GoOdy who had beaten NesTea in Ro32 had earned the reputation of being quite a defensive player after his matches at IEM Season 5 championships and NaNiwa as we all know had been on quite a roll already. The 2nd match of the day was quite a cracker as the American Protoss who had taken out EG.IdrA aka coL.CrunCher was going up against the German Zerg MYM....

TSL3’s Ro16 hit day 3 and it was a much anticipated weekend because of a couple of big names and the 2 Zergs for a change. It couldn’t have been a better Saturday with the Korean Terran Legend SlayerS BoxeR going up against the charismatic foreigner Zerg FnaticMSI.Sen. It was then the German Protoss mouz.HasuObs going up against the Swedish Zerg mouz.MorroW. Nobody was expecting less than a 5-mapper and given all the PvZ and TvZ talks despite some huge upsets in the TSL3 so far, I was hopeful we’d see a bit more upsets. So let’s not waste any more time and jump in to...

We’ve been playing quake for more than a decade now - a game that has humbled us and belittled our infantile feelings of personal omnipotence whenever we gave it the chance to do so. To many, it was more than just a game and continues to be so, which probably explains why it’s alive even today. We still have fond memories of when it was big back in the day and playing a deathmatch was such an adrenaline rush apart from being the new way to socialize with fellow gamers who had fallen in love with it. The game hit a new high when John D. Carmack had to part ways with his...

Version 2.0.23
-------------
- Fixed the Zzz above creeps for player-controlled units
- Vagabond Leader, Minotaur, and Catman Champion can no longer use abilities against Magic Immune units
== Items ==
- Token of Life duration lowered from 10 minutes to 7 minutes
* Kongor's respawn time is still 10 minutes
- Bastard Sword removed from the game
- Halberd removed from the game
- Fortified Bracelet renamed to Fortified Bracer
- Talisman of Exile renamed to Amulet of Exile
- Great Arcana renamed to Arcana
Assassin's Shroud
- Fixed a tiny bug where if you had a high...

Day 2 of TSL3’s Ro16 kicked off and promised more entertainment with FXO.qxc and Mill.Adelscott going up against each other in a TvP contest. The 2nd game of the day had bigger chances of upsets though as oGs.NaDa was to face Empire.Kas in a TvT confrontation. With a lot of Koreans already eliminated in the Ro32, the foreigners really put up a great display of skill and how they’ve been closing the gap by squeezing in some hardcore practice as well as being somewhat unorthodox in their styles. Adelscott who had beaten the GSL champion IM.MVP in Ro32 and qxc who had...

After a string of spectacular performances we witnessed in the Ro32, it was once again Starcraft 2 time as the Ro16 Day 1 kicked off in the Pokerstrategy.com’s TSL3 tournament where some of the best Starcraft 2 players have and will continue to compete for that prized top spot. Unlike the Ro32 game which were best of 3, the Ro16 matches were Best of 5. After the more or less one sided GSL5 World Championship Finals between MarineKingPrime and MVP, more expectations were pinned on the TSL3 Ro16 day 1 confrontations just to redeem all that wasted spectator hype. And why...

With the final day of the TSL3 Ro32 kicking off, one couldn’t help but wonder how much awesome Starcraft 2 action waits ahead in the Ro16. However, that does not by any means discredit the epic 3 days of Ro32 that gave us some really huge upsets and pretty interesting results - favorites, underdogs and dark horses alike. But day 4 had its own charm as we bid farewell to the Ro32 while being happy that it had been so awesome so far and a little bit of sadness because some of our favorites lost and the fact that it was the last day of Ro32. Instead of sulking though, let...

So on April Fool's Day, I suddenly I thought of a joke that TL made last year before sc2 was release, they made a website about how sc2 is suppose to be played, talking stuff like recapturing the magic from StarCraft Brood War. It is no secret that Blizzard designed sc2 to be noobified friendly, all the auto's, the ball formation, max selection and others so that it can attract new comers who has never tasted e-Sports before.
Although the website is intented to be just a April Fool's joke, TL did make a good point about sc2 e-Sports as they quote "When skill and skill only...

As Day 3 of PokerStrategy.com’s TSL3 Match 1 began on Xel’Naga Caverns, the red Terran IM MVP took the South West spawn with his French Protoss rival Mill.Adelscott took the diagonally across North East position. Adelscott came into the game as the underdog and as both the players put up their expansions, it was a pretty standard start. Adelscott soon went in with his stalker taking down a few SCVs and kited away. Adelscott continued his aggression attacking MVP’s command centre with stalkers and soon both the players amassed a small army for an initial...

Day 2 kicked off with oGs.MC facing off against ieS.Ciara on Metalopolis. The 2 time GSL champion and a ruthless Protoss player, MC was without the slightest doubt the favorite in this match. Both the players spawned right across each other on the map and opened up in a pretty standard form. While MC stuck to some initial poking with 2 Zealots and noticed that Ciara had nothing but Zerglings decided to take it a notch further. Despite a half-hearted attempt from Ciara to outflank MC from behind with a small number of lings, it just didn’t work out in his favor. As a...

TSL3’s Ro32 ended last night and we all bid farewell to the 4th day of some more upsets and great performances. This Ro32 has been rather special, considering the variety of play styles on the menu and as expected, it has delivered some very interesting results. Let’s dive right into all the action that has taken place up until day 4 and the awesomeness that we’ve witnessed while at it.
This was a rather unusual Saturday because for once, I wasn’t driving my mom around to the shopping malls and visiting some relatives who probably think that Starcraft 2 is...

UNGL Destiny CUP 2011
The DuskBin.HoN team has become well known and loved in the community as being one that is incredibly entertaining to watch, what with their hyper aggressive gameplay style and intense ganking strategies. With its aggressiveness and difficult to anticipate gameplans, DuskBin.HoN has managed many amazing triumphs and winning comebacks over the seasons. In one of its greatest triumphs to date, Team DuskBin.HoN has taken the win in the UNGL Destiny Cup. The team dominated its way to the finals with a cleansweep victory against all opposing teams.
...

During the Brood War days, both MC and July were actually from the same team known as MBCGame HERO. July was much more successful that mc then, winning three OSL titles in his bw career. MC on the other hand was in a team B, also known as the suicide toss because of his cocky-ness. But now, in sc2 both player's role have changed...for a good reason.
Editor's note - All the games are pretty short.
In the first game in Metalopolis, July spawned at the top with MC at the bottom. A cross position with quite a distance, the audience and commentators expects a...

I recently discussed in an article about how the great divide between Asia and the rest of the world has been detrimental to Asian e-Sports, with our talented player pool not being able to compete in Europe and America. However, the IEM 5 World Finals served as a ray of hope that made it through a much needed crevice into the dark cave of lost opportunity. The Asian invites not only flipped the scorecards and shook the top order, but served as a huge example of how easy it can be to shatter the barriers and mental blocks for the greater good. Thanks to those 4 invites...

The Eager anticipation of HoN enthusiasts throughout Southeast Asia is almost palpable as Garena HoN nears the launch of HoN 2.0 with its awesome array of new features. In order to familiarise both old and new players to the changes made in the latest version of HoN, a series of videos has been created. Garena HoN and Team DuskBin Esports in conjunction with Wuzzy Productions are proud to present :
HoN 2.0 Interface Previews
...

No other e-Sports discipline gave us more goosebumps in 2011 than Counter Strike. The reason obviously being the big names shuffling between the teams and still not living up to the tall claims and expectations attached to them. We did however witness some spectacular performances as well that resulted in some huge upsets. The results of the European Finals seemed to suggest that despite not being the most powerful team in the arena, Fnatic somehow managed to overcome by playing 1 round at a time instead of keeping the bigger picture of winning the map as their...

The SC2 division at the IEM World Finals was a star-studded lineup. What really made it different though was the presence of 3 Asian players who went on to create history on the European soil. While the Europeans had recently played against each other in Kiev and were more or less ready for each other, they had little to no experience against the Asian contingent which consisted of some of the famous names in the South Korean Starcraft 2 scene. It was finally time to see how the foreigners would match up against their Asian counterparts, a contest that had been awaited...

Intel Extreme Masters Season 5 World Finals have been so eventful that an ode is a must. The first exciting event of 2011 – The European Finals - delivered so much awesomeness that the expectations for the World Finals were sky high. Crowned as the European Champion, the Russian Quake legend Anton “Cooller” Singov had won many fans across the world by striking a different chord in Kiev. Coming into Hannover, he was definitely the favorite to take away the World Championship title and fulfill his dream. Cooller was not alone, for there were 15 other contenders who would...

Change is inevitable and it governs everything. It rewards, punishes and at times, passes by like an unheard and unnoticed whimper. It pushes you forward to drag you back and you feel like you’re no longer in control of your thoughts and consequently, the outcomes. Many judgments get thwarted and our juvenile feelings of personal omnipotence get shattered. However, we conveniently smile or find an excuse to discredit the next guy’s grandiose and move on to the next iteration. It’s like a gambler waiting to get lucky with his next bet. What increases the magnitude of...

Blizzard has announced patch 1.3.0 for PTR (public test realms) just a few hours ago, you can take a look at it right here.
Remember that it's only for PTR, so not all the changes in the list are gonna make it out alive. But at the same time, we simply cannot ignore it because our voices matters. So in this article we will explore the pros and cons for it, especially the race balance changes (I'm not gonna list down all, obviously it will be too long ).
Balance
GENERAL
Players can no longer hide units by setting...

What a way to open up Code S opening match in the new season of GSL5, putting in two GSL champions, a bw legend and a fellow korean who infamously kicked out TLO in GSL1. However only two can move on, a player only needs two wins in order to pass. For those who are new to GSL the elimination format goes like this, as the picture below explains.
SET 1 - IMMvp (Red Terran) vs ogsHyperdub (Blue Terran) in Tal’ Darin Altar map, spawned at top left and bottom right
This was the same map that mvp faced ST_Bomber in GSTL (Global StarCraft 2 Team League) two...

If you’re a sc fan boy (or girl), you probably have come across several online threads about whether scbw or sc2 is better, topics like "why some players prefer sc2." or "how funny that majority of sc2 players never touched scbw before." But inside those threads is usually flamed with “urg I hate sc2 wtf blizz." or "omg why do people still play scbw it’s so oldz lol.” stuff like that between the two fan groups, one can wonder when will this ever end.
The Community
I’m sure that all scbw veterans understand how harsh and difficult it is get started in scbw multiplayer...

We’re a generation that has witnessed the birth of videogames and the inevitable advent of e-Sports and professional gaming. Despite being from different countries, ethnicities, cultural backgrounds and schools of thought, there’s one common factor that binds us all – our passion for gaming. While the available resources might have limited the boundaries for some, it has not deterred us from following our favorite games and players across the globe. We have idolized them, cheered for them, been sad when they couldn’t perform well, defended them and eventually bid farewell to move...

The Global StarCraft 2 Team League (GSTL) is the first league that involves top eight sc2 teams to battle out to determine the best starcraft 2 team in the world, teams are selected through their players performance in the GSL starting from January. The tournament started on Feb 7 and ended on Feb 10, on a side note the next GSL will be starting in March.
The format of playing is “winner stay” format. Meaning that the winner of the first 1v1 game stays and will face the next opponent on and on until a 4-0 in a best of 7 series win for the team, it is exactly the same as the...

Here I am with the final part of the article as we pay homage to the game of the games - Starcraft 2! How do you trump the mighty South-Koreans? Well, it's simple - You don't! The foreigners still seem to be playing catch-up as the competition heats up for the next wave. With GSL Open Season 2 and IEM World Finals around the corner, it's raining Starcraft 2.
Mvp
The South Korean Terran beast Jong-Hyun “mvp” Jung has had a terrific start with two first places - Sony Ericsson GSL 2011 Code S and Gainward SC2 Tournament. His recent victory over...

As promised, here’s the second part of the article and this time around, we’ll be discussing QuakeLive! IEM 5 has shown us the best matches between some of the top duelers in Europe. The coverage was nice, the interviews were great and the matches were so worth taking an off from the day job. We also saw some very interesting results and just like CS 1.6, some huge upsets. I’ll also touch up on the controversy surrounding the Semi-Final between Anton “Cooller” Singov and Kevin “Strenx” Baeza that brought along a lot of drama. To top all that, we’re about to approach...

The New Year has just begun and we’ve already had our first major fix of 2011 – The Intel Extreme Masters Season V European Championship Finals. A major gaming tournament in the heart of Ukraine with some of the biggest names from Starcraft 2, QuakeLive and Counter Strike scene battling it out for supremacy, while close to 35,000+ people tuned into Live Streams across the world watching and cheering for their idols. Seriously, what more could one ask for?
While the big names and big anticipations build up for CeBIT, the not so big author of this article would love to make...

It was after dawn on the 6th of January when the servers went down. This downtime was marked with a sigh of relief and a sense of riddance. While problematic servers were the norm before, ‘twas the announcement of patch day that calmed the sea restless players. Thus on that day, GarenaHoN saw the transition of version 1.0.17 to 1.0.18.
While it was expected to arrive long before the 6th of January, technical errors and the festive season pushed the patch a number of weeks before it was eventually implemented. Cries and whines of Garena’s beloved community were heard...

Before I start, let’s take a look at what appears to be the problem and how Blizzard is attempting to solve it. The problem is essentially the phases of the matchup. In the early game, the Terran has a powerful advantage in terms of
-Zerg is unable to scout the Terran effectively or without cost
-The Terran has a multitude of openings possible from the same build order or slight changes which are difficult to see
-Gas is very limited for Zerg in terms of unit cost, making access to powerful tech units difficult
-Terran has better early game army efficiency...

The magnificent Hyperion
Having played the beta once, I delved myself first into the campaign (besides being a story maniac). The choices of missions and the general variety are nice. The CGI cinematic is very nice despite the first one being a spoiler to what would happen in the end of the story. The in game videos are done well to please me. However, there was never a sense of urgency to play certain missions despite what the dialogue says in the selection menu. You could literally finish one of the few subplots without affecting the other. Of course, you’d miss out on a few...

Singapore Expo, License2Play
SCOGA HoN 5v5 Competition
From the 28th to the 30th of May, SCOGA held a 5v5 HoN Qualifier tournament @ License2Play 2010 which was hosted in the Singapore Expo. The champions of this tournament walked away with tickets to represent Singapore at the Digital Youth Awards being held at the Shanghai Expo in mid august, as well as tickets to attend Dreamhack Winter 2010 in november, the largest Lan-gaming competition in the world.
I went down to cover the finals with a substitute photographer (one of my original picks having to cover a wedding, and the...

With HoN going retail internationally, S2 games has already released two new heroes to bolster the Hellbourne's ranks with an additional Legion hero being announced.
The original lineup was truly impressive in itself, sporting 62 heroes some largely identical to their DotA counterparts, numerous hybrids as well as a number of entirely new heroes.
For the Hellbourne, we have the addition of :
Balphagore
&
Gauntlet
Hero Highlights
Gauntlet is still currently stuck in development due to number of issues concerning his second...

DuskBin E-sports interviews our own player Sen on his recent performance.
DuskBin: Congratulations on the recent dominating performance! Being ranked as the #1 SC2 player in the foreign scene (Gosugamers.net ranking) right now, what does it take to be at the top of the game?
Sen: I would like to thank Gosugamers for the ranking, it was very surprising that I’m no.1 and only lost a game in the records, and it made me recall that a few years ago in SC1 I was also ranked no.1 back then. To be honest though, I’ve actually been losing...

KawaiiRice is a player in USA, being active and competitive in Starcraft 1. His recorded videos and livestreams are an inspiration for many new and experienced players alike in Starcraft. Recently, he had been inducted into the FnaticMSI Starcraft team along with several other excellent players in the international level of Starcraft. Now in Starcraft 2, he is among the few players who are actively designing strategies to counter the problems encountered during the Starcraft 2 Beta.
Lok-Yin Kwong in the flesh
Hi, How are you doing today?
Not too good. I...

The rounds are won in the following order.
Fighting Spirit : IefNaij > DuskBin.SEn
Destination: IefNaij > DuskBin.SEn
Outsider: IefNaij < DuskBin.SEn
New Tornado: IefNaij < DuskBin.SEn
Andromeda: IefNaij < DuskBin.SEn
That was a very close match with Sen performing a full reversal to end with a score of 3-2. Videos will be uploaded soon.
His opponent will be mouz.IefNaij. Jian Fei Wang. He is a dangerous Protoss, having been the previous winner of the first Teamliquid Starleague. Add to that multiple first place wins such as the...

DuskBin.Sen didn't go lucky this time for he has a clean loss of 0 - 3 against ToT)Mondragon. Sen will now fight for third place of $2500. The Finals will now be ToT)Mondragon vs Liquid'Nony.
The next opponent Sen will face will be ToT)Mondragon. Mondragon or Christoph Semke is one of the elites of German Starcraft. He has been playing competitive Starcraft for many years, among the starting generation of Starcraft-ians. He had been successful over the years with his Zerg, winning top places in multiple tournaments and events such as the Giga Liga Grandslam 5 or the...

Our very own Quake Live contender, nitroN, interviewed by Spotgamers the day before leaving for ESL Intel Extreme Masters Asian Championship in Taiwan.
Spotgamers: How are your preparations for this upcoming tournament?
nitroN: I've been training hard by watching demos and playing the whole day ever since I got the news that I got an invitation spot from ash of DuskBin which was around 14 days from the event date. I have my semester finals going on in between and I had to juggle both at the same time.
Spotgamers: Why did you decide to join Duskbin...

Being an amateur video editor himself, our very own DuskBin.Pixl has created and rendered himself their frags of the year (some of them anyway) into a frag movie.
Constructive criticism and comments are much appreciated, but most of all, enjoy the movie!

On the first impression, it looked decorated with aesthetics and technical posters such as brackets and scores list. The orc and night elf models were a nice touch and made this tournament different than all the usually detail scare, clean walls and lacking aesthetics. The pictures of previous SMM also made it unlike a tournament area but also a memory lane of SMM’s previous achievement. SMM also displayed their awards and success which was impressive.
Don’t Night Elves ever get cold?
You don’t mess with me! Lok Ta Rogar!
Clean smooth good looking...

Currently, Korea is seen as the best Starcraft nation in the world. It has the highest concentration of excellent players with huge government support to found the E-sports industry. Its player base reach numbers which may even outnumber totaled players from several nations. Korea too has multiple offline tournaments, leagues, televised matches etc. Fan clubs were organized in conjunction of multiple ‘favourite’ star players.
China currently is second to that standard of industry. However, the Chinese pro-scene is rather isolated from the rest of the world events in Starcraft. Why...

Sudden Attack SEA is an alternative to Counter-Strike based on many gamers’ point of view after trying the game. What makes Sudden Attack a great online shooter game? It has a highly addictive game play that is easy to learn with fast pace action in every match. The game also features a ranking system for both players and squads so do expect great competition in the race to be at the top of the ranking. Besides that, this game spots a very comprehensive squad battle system that enables easy access to friendly matches among the teams. Best of all, Sudden Attack gives players a wide...

With WCG Grand Finals less than a week away, many speculations are rife across the bountiful games on store. Starcraft is no exception and here’s what I think what would happen in the upcoming Starcraft games. Currently, the players are divided into four groups of A,B,C and D. The matches will be played by the representatives of various nations all over the world. The games will be a best of one, seeing who clearly wins the most points in the group before advancing.
Group A
Fenix
Jaedong
g.Carlo...

Disclaimer: This post means no offense to any of the players, organizations, or countries mentioned below. All the views and critics are only limited to the authors own point of view.
The Asian Indoor Games 2009, held in Hanoi, Vietnam a few days ago has just ended with a semi-grand closing ceremony. I was there personally to give coverage on the whole event, as well as meet up and to support our very own player, DuskBin.F91. However, a few days before my flight, I was only then informed about China will not be sending F91 to take part in the event, the reason...

DuskBin is a new organisation to the world of E-sports, founded only the coming end of the year. Its Starcraft teams however are not as green. Rich with years of experience, these players are among the best of the foreigner Starcraft world. We’ll now take a look back to see how this team came to be what it is today.
The team was founded from players all over Asia. F91 and Sen were former Starcraft players for MYM (Meet Your Makers). Phoenix66, LBH, Jaystar were all brought together through...

Starcraft team interview
Questions to all players (Unless specified otherwise)
1) Tell us a bit about yourself
2) What do you all do besides pro-gaming in Starcraft?
3) How were things going since your departure from Fnatic? (Except Marine)
4) How are you feeling about the new member of the team, Marine? (Except Marine)
5) Who is the boss in your team? The...

Hello all of you! I guess you guys are the new Duskbin.cs roster. So, can you start off by giving us a little introduction for yourself and tell us about your role on the team! 1 - When did you start to play CS competitively? 2 - Who was your inspiration or your idol before you became a professional CS player? 3 - Do you play any other games besides CS? 4 - You have won so many tournaments in Hong Kong, is your family being supportive with you? 5 - What is your goal for WCG Grand final? 6 - You have been performing well lately even before joining Duskbin. Can you talk about your...